This blog is my attempt to understand why the American news media is deliberately divisive. It has been since the founding of our country. See my earlier blog when I recognized this.
First, I can understand part of it. Almost any collection of people with a strong attachment to a leader will be attacked by the news media. This has always been true. It was evident in the case of John Brown, an abolitionist leader who tried to raise a slave revolt. It was true for Jim Jones's People's Temple, Huey Newton's Black Panthers and Chuck Dederich's Synanon all three of which I knew personally. Exceptions may be made for religious leaders but many were chased out of Europe in an earlier era. Including the Mormons in the U.S.
This I can understand. Any stable society will try to invalidate the sources of revolution at its inception. It will attack the potential insurrection at the earliest point.
This does not explain the attacks on individuals from Hamilton, to Andrew Jackson, Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan. It may explain the attacks on Joe McCarthy and Donald Trump. Also the hatred of John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.
As a matter of fact, it may explain these as well. These were strong men with a cohesive group of supporters. What is interesting is that these men were and are attacking the world view of the news media.
The media for the 19th and 20th Century have been believers in socialism, a zero sum world where any disturbance is seen as a redistribution from the existing order. The news media generally support the status quo including Fabian Socialism (mild social revolution).
This first explanation I started with, squashing potential rebellion, may be the only necessary explanation.
Certainly the current extreme divisiveness of the news media, with its unparalleled hatred of Donald Trump, is in recognition of Trump's magnetic appeal to a vast group of followers and his effectiveness in destroying the model of a 'global new world order'.
I'm satisfied with my explanation. Are you?
Now the question becomes 'Does this explain the tech giants, Google, Facebook et al'?
Yes, the super-billionaires and the companies they run have a stake in the status quo and are able to strangle dissent at its earliest stages.
Google, the best example I know, has an endless hiring-screening process that can last weeks, even months. That assures a homogeneous status quo zero sum worldview in its workforce.
I'm satisfied. Now I know.